This spring, Transatlantic Love Affair is back at Illusion Theater, the artistic partner of this Minnesota Fringe-born physical theater company for a decade and a half. TLA typically debuts new original pieces at Fringe, and then in the next year or two continues to develop and expand the show into a 75-ish minute piece produced by and staged at Illusion. This year, they're remounting/revisiting their 2011 Fringe hit
Red Resurrected, which I first saw in
2013 in the expanded Illusion Theater version. Retitled
Red and the Mother Wild and with some additional content/themes added, it's still an exquisitely lovely and achingly beautiful piece, as all of TLA's work is. It's essentially a coming of age story of a young orphan girl who finds her purpose in the supposedly dangerous woods, told without any props or set pieces (or shoes), but simply using the voices, bodies, and souls of the talented seven-person cast.
Experience the magic that is TLA at Center for the Performing Arts in Uptown through April 12.
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Red (Adelin Phelps) promising her foster mother
(Allison Vincent) not to go into the woods
(photo by Lauren B Photography) |
Red Resurrected and
Red and the Mother Wild were conceived and directed by Isabel Nelson, loosely re-imagining the familiar fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, combining it with other myths and legends in a way that makes it feel like a completely new story, yet familiar. Red lives in a small town called Primrose in the hills of Appalachia; she has no family of her own, and instead is literally being raised by the village. She's a happy child, doing chores and playing with her friends, but warned never to go down to the woods. Red is fascinated by the woods, and as she grows up she begins to find that the woods are the only place she feels at home. When her safe and familiar world is shaken (the wolves that young women face are not always of the canine variety, but are just as dangerous), she escapes into the woods on a path that runs west out of Primrose. There she meets a woman who can heal the broken, and learns from her.* Now Red must decide what to do with her newfound knowledge and skills.
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Red (Adelin Phelps) with the woman in the woods (Amber Bjork)
(with Allison Vincent, Derek Lee Miller, Mark Benzel, Peyton
McCandless and Jack Bechard, photo by Lauren B Photography) |
I'm not sure what exactly has been added or changed since the 2013 version; it feels like a full and cohesive story that always was. But perhaps the character of the woman in the woods has been fleshed out a bit. Three cast members reprise their roles from the 2013 production - Adelin Phelps embodying both the innocent and carefree child and the frightened and world weary adult Red, Allison Vincent in an endearing performance as her most supportive foster mother, and Derek Lee Miller slowly revealing the menacing side of her foster father. New to this version of the show are Amber Bjork with a real and lived-in performance as the woman in the woods (and narrator), Peyton McCandless as Red's least favorite foster mother who is more than she seems, Jack Bechard as Red's friend, and Mark Benzel in multiple roles.
The beautiful thing about this company is the way that they work as one to create the world of the story. They not only play the human characters, but also animals, trees, mountains, doors, the dripping sink, and everything else that's needed to make this feel like a full and real world. It truly is magic how they create sounds and shapes that, with a little imagination on the audience's part, feel so real. The cast is dressed in simple neutral-toned clothing that evokes the time and place, and the only "theater trick" employed is the lighting design which helps set the tone, location, or time of day (costume design by Mandi Johnson, lighting design by Dante Benjegerdes).
TLA often has a live musician accompanying the story on one specific instrument, but for this show the cast sings a capella, solo or in harmony. They sing songs that sound authentic to the time and place, adding more layers and color to the world.
If you've never seen Transatlantic Love Affair's unique and moving performance style before,
give Red and the Mother Wild a try. It's only 75 minutes, but it's an epic and entirely satisfying experience. If you have seen TLA before, you know that their shows (which only come around every year or two) are simply not to be missed.
